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Feds plan wild horse roundup

Animals will be held or sterilized and released

By Paul Foy Associated Press

Posted:
09/30/2012 10:29:46 PM MDT

Updated:
09/30/2012 10:30:37 PM MDT

Click photo to enlarge

FILE - In this Jan. 19, 200 file photo, A wild stallion runs for freedom after jumping over the fence of a holding area during a wild horse roundup in the Clan Alpine Range in Fallon, Nev., about 120 miles east of Reno, Nev. Federal officials will round up thousands of wild horses and burros across six Western states starting Monday, Oct. 1, 2012. The Bureau of Land Management says the roundups will take place through February on drought-stricken range lands in Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. (AP Photo/Reno Gazette-Journal, Marilyn Newton, File)

SALT LAKE CITY -- Federal officials plan to round up thousands of wild horses and burros across six Western states starting today.

The roundups will take place through February on drought-stricken range lands in Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

Contractors for the Bureau of Land Management will use helicopters plus bait- and water-trapping methods to corral 3,500 wild horses and burros, officials said.

In addition, more than 900 other horses will be captured for birth control injections and returned to range lands.

The government is already holding 47,000 horses, most of them on green pasture in the Midwest. Bureau of Land Management officials said it was a popular misconception that they send horses to slaughterhouses.

FILE - In this Jan. 19, 200 file photo, A wild stallion runs for freedom after jumping over the fence of a holding area during a wild horse roundup in the Clan Alpine Range in Fallon, Nev., about 120 miles east of Reno, Nev. Federal officials will round up thousands of wild horses and burros across six Western states starting Monday, Oct. 1, 2012. The Bureau of Land Management says the roundups will take place through February on drought-stricken range lands in Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. (AP Photo/Reno Gazette-Journal, Marilyn Newton, File)
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Marilyn Newton
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The animals are protected under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.

A small number of horses are put up for adoption, but most horses are kept until their final days in permanent corrals, officials said.

Owners of adopted horses must swear under the penalty of law that they do not plan to send horses to slaughter, said Heather Emmons, a BLM spokeswoman in Reno, Nev.

The BLM's ability to care for ever-rising numbers of wild horses is a decision left to Congress, she said. The BLM says there are 11,000 more wild horses roaming public lands across the West than belong there.

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